World News in Brief: November 3

Representatives from six Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) countries passed an initiative on Friday (November 2) to enhance cooperation on water resources during a forum held in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province.

* Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) would publish preliminary results of its examination on content of crashed Lion Air's blackbox next month, a KNKT investigator said. Lion Air JT 610 with 189 people onboard crashed enroute to Pangkalpinang from Jakarta on October 29 morning.

* China is willing to resolve trade issues with the United States through mutually respectful talks and on an equal footing, said one of the country's vice commerce ministers Wang Bingnan on November 3.

* US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will likely make a deal with China on trade, adding that a lot of progress had been made to resolve the two countries' differences but warning that he still may impose more tariffs on Chinese goods.

* The order to kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi came from the "highest levels" of the Saudi government, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said in an op-ed piece published by the Washington Post on Friday.

* The European Union (EU) and it's troika (France, Germany and Britain) on Friday jointly showed their deep regret on Washington's further re-imposition of sanctions against Iran, vowing to protect European economic operators engaged in legitimate business with Tehran.

* Visiting Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday that Italy will invest €165 million (US$188 million) in development projects in Tunisia for the period 2017-2020.

* Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel signed a joint statement on Friday on maintaining and strengthening their cooperation in international affairs.

* UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday appealed for an end to the war in Yemen and laid out steps the parties in the conflict must take to move forward, warning that continued fighting would result in the country's worst famine in a decade.

* Britain and Ireland will seek to hold regular summits between leaders and ministers after Brexit to maintain ties strained by Britain's decision to leave the EU, senior ministers from both governments said on Friday.

* Cuba on Friday rejected new US economic sanctions against the island's military and intelligence services announced by US National Security Advisor John Bolton, saying the move has an "electoral interest."

* Four people were wounded in a shooting incident in the US state of Florida, local officials said. The shooting took place in a yoga studio in the Florida capital city of Tallahassee, the city's spokeswoman Alison Faris confirmed that the shooter had killed himself after attacking others during a yoga class.

* The White House announced on Friday that US President Donald Trump will not travel to Colombia later this month due to his busy schedule. The White House further explained that Trump had met with Colombian President Ivan Duque on the margins of the UN General Assembly on September 25, "and looks forward to future opportunities to engage."

* Cameroon's speaker of the National Assembly Cavaye Yeguie Djibril on November 2 criticized post-electoral "disorder and division" in the country.

* The UN migration agency, IOM, said Friday it will continue to assist and support migrant in caravans crossing Central America that are currently hundreds of miles from the United States.

* Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi was invited by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to the upcoming summit on the Libyan crisis, Tunisian presidency said Friday. Essebsi received the invitation to the summit scheduled for November 12-13 in the Italian city of Palermo during Conte's one-day official visit to Tunisia.

* The Trump administration announced on Friday that it will slap back sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the historic 2015 Iran nuke deal, with eight jurisdictions given temporary waivers.

* A total of 66.2 million foreign tourists visited Spain during the first nine months of 2018, the Spanish government confirmed on Friday.

* The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on Friday revealed that some 486 million people remain undernourished in Asia-Pacific, and little had changed from the past two years.

* Visa-free travel between Ukraine and Qatar came into effect on Friday, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. The deal allows citizens of Ukraine and Qatar to stay in each other's respective country without a visa for a maximum of 90 days in a 180-day period.